“I... I get that,” she said. “I decided that I wanted to make my own life. On my own terms. My mother was just so overbearing, the idea of being answerable to anybody else...”
“Right. You mentioned your mother. And sisters?”
She nodded. “I have three sisters. I think they’re all married by now.” Thinking about them made her eyes feel scratchy. “I hope they’re happy. I really do. I hope that there’s happiness to be had in all of those things my mom taught us, but I just couldn’t find it. I wanted different. And I couldn’t stand living a life that mistrusted the world so much. Not when I was so interested in all the things in it. And when I think about it... I’m sure that something happened to her to make her feel that way. I mean, I know my father left her, but I wonder if there was more. But she never talked about it, and I could never ask. I never felt like I could ask. I was never brave enough to ask. I was brave enough to leave. But that’s a whole different thing, isn’t it?”
“There’s not always anything good to be had from confrontation,” he said, fixing his own plate. “Sometimes that just ends in bullet wounds.”
There was a comfort in those words. And he was right. There were things that couldn’t be fixed. Gulfs that were too wide to cross. Forgiveness might be possible, but if you and another person woke up every day, looked out at the same sun in the same sky and came to wholly different conclusions, maybe there was only so far it could go.
“My mother wasn’t going to shoot me,” she said.
“You don’t really know.”
“I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have. But she probably would have yelled. Disowned me. Which I know she did anyway, but I never had to see any of it. It’s awful to have to cut everybody off so entirely though. To protect yourself.”
“It’s too much work,” he said. “Living a life where you have to protect yourself. You ought to live with someone who protects you.”
She looked down at her food. “That’s a very nice sentiment. But I’ve always been my own hero. I wouldn’t say no to Captain America... But he hasn’t shown up yet.”
“Not very American of him.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it.
He was still shirtless. And she didn’t wish that Captain America was there. She just wanted Clayton. Wasn’t that the darndest thing?
“How old are you?” she asked.
The question just sort of spilled out of her mouth. She wanted to know more about him.
“Thirty-two.”
“Do you have any kids?”
He laughed. Actually laughed. “No.”
“And you don’t want them.”
“No,” he said. “Like I said, I don’t have a place in my life for another person.”
Well, up until this she thought the same about herself. But sitting with him at the kitchen table eating dinner, coming home to a cooked dinner, to chopped wood, to conversation...
It didn’t matter. It didn’t much matter, but she was thankful for this moment that defied her plans all the same. And though he didn’t say it, she had a feeling that he was too. That this moment, with companionship, mattered to him just as much as it did to her.
CHAPTER SIX
SHE HAD CUT out a big square of plastic for him, and he taped it right over the stitches. All the better to get that shower done, since apparently he smelled, or she wouldn’t have said anything earlier when she’d walked past him.
She didn’t smell. Not like anything other than sweet soap and skin.
And he wanted to inhale her.
And he knew that he couldn’t. Knew that he shouldn’t.
She’d gone off to fetch some clothes for him, and he hadn’t asked where. He hadn’t wanted to prolong the moment being half-naked around her, frankly.
He was doing his damnedest not to take any of the open invitations that he sensed coming from her. Because he knew that she was inexperienced. Because he knew that he was the one who had brought potential danger to her door. Because he had interrupted her life.
Because he had nothing to offer her no matter what.
But that didn’t stop him feeling things all the same. And he’d very nearly blown it when he felt her checking him out on his way up the stairs. He’d almost said something.
She was beautiful. So damned pretty, and the way that she openly appraised him made his blood run hot. But he couldn’t afford to let his blood run hot with her. No, he sure as hell couldn’t.
He got into the shower and stood beneath the hot spray, feeling a hell of a lot more fatigued than he would’ve liked to admit. Chopping that wood and making dinner had taken a lot more out of him than it would have under any other circumstances. He was used to hard work.
Used to it, enjoyed it. He hadn’t been working much, particularly the past year, because he’d been deciding where he was going to settle, where he was going to buy a ranch. But he got out and rode his horses every day.
He worried about his horses. He knew that his neighbor would make sure that any of his livestock was taken care of at the property that he rented, but he just hoped that his brother wasn’t vindictive enough to come back and do something to his animals.
There was a moment where he felt light-headed, and he stumbled slightly in the shower, slamming against the wall and knocking a passel of bottles onto the tile floor with a big crash.
He was fine. And he was still on his feet. But this injury was a damned humiliation. He felt like an infirm toddler.
And then the door swung open. “Are you okay?” And her eyes went wide. He hadn’t shut the door on the shower, so she could see inside. He knew that. The same as he could see her expression, all shocked and red as her eyes roamed over his body.
He gritted his teeth, willing his body not to visibly respond to the provocation of her gaze.
“I’m fine,” he said.
She shut the door quickly, and he let the water run over him for another couple of minutes before he got out.
He’d scared her. She’d come in to check on him, and he’d given her an eyeful.
She wanted one.
Maybe. And it killed him that he couldn’t make a move. That he couldn’t see if she wanted him as much as he thought she might.
He thought back to sitting with her at the table for dinner. It had been unexpectedly nice. All of it had. This was such a strange detour from the life he normally lived. Which was... Frankly, a little bit lonely. He went out to bars, and he hooked up with women. Off the circuit, he didn’t have friends around him, so even a night of drinking and light conversation didn’t happen all that often.